GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 104904
How to exit to 'regular' precision mode?
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
It seems I can only put the calculator into Eng, Fix or Sci modes. How do I turn off all these modes and have it just work like a regular calculator again, i.e. shows as many decimal places as required, no more, no less, and no 'e' notation? :)
That's what "Fix" for "Fixed" means. In fixed notation, the calculator will use an xxx.yyy format unless the number is too small or too large to be represented, in which case it will revert to scientific notation. This is the same as the calculator in OpenWindows DeskSet, CDE, gcalc in the current GNOME desktop and the calculators in Windows.
I don't think it's the same at all, unless I'm missing something... Fix mode always shows the same number of decimal places, which isn't how most real calculators behave unless you explicitly put them into fixed mode. E.g with gcalc, or my pocket calculator, if I type 1.1*2 I get "2.2" - 1 decimal place. If I type 1.111*3 I get 3.333 - 3 decimal places. The number of decimal places shown is purely determined by the result, not some accuracy value I've had to specify somewhere.
Okay, I see what you are saying. Giving the accuracy to "n" numeric places is needed because internally the arithmetic in gcalctool is done with a multiple precision package. It generates lots of digits after the numeric point. The Acc menu is used to allow the user to set how many they would like to see. The default number of places is 2. Changing this behaviour would be hard.
Reopening it, to assign it properly.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 108226 ***